Education and Culture
During this period a Hebrew Kindergarten, a Hebrew elementary school of the
Tarbuth chain (directed by Levinson, Aba Yofe), a Hebrew elementary school of
the Yavneh chain (the director was Kirsh) and a Hebrew gymnasium (High School)
also of the Tarbuth chain, were established in Rasein. Youngsters from the
Tavrig and Keidan districts also studied in this gymnasium, which opened in 1922.
During the first years about 180 pupils attended the school. The gymnasium had its
own building, the ground floor being occupied by the government elementary school.
Many of its graduates continued their studies at Kovno University.

With the decline of the economic situation of Lithuanian Jewry in general and
of Rasein Jews in particular, the number of pupils in the gymnasium declined,
numbering less than a hundred by the end of the 1930s. High tuition fees that
many families could not afford, and the difficulties that the Lithuanian
examiners placed in the way of Jewish students at matriculation examinations
were among the reasons for this. More and more Jewish youngsters began to study
at the government high school, where tuition fees were minimal but some
teachers were anti-Semitic.

The Hebrew Gymnasium (1930)

Directors of the Hebrew gymnasium included: Dr. Josef Levinzon; Dr. Refael
Rabinovitz, who was also the deputy head of the community; Dr. Tsevi Rolnik;
Dr. Yisrael Mehlman (died in Jerusalem in 1990); Dr. Tuviyah Arieli
(Leibovitz); Y. Salomon; Dr. Avraham Berkovitz. The last director was Dr. Dov
Zilber. Some teachers would converse with students on Fridays evening or on
Shabbath afternoon on subjects of correct behavior or on present-day problems
concerning world Jewry and Eretz-Yisrael. These included the poetess Leah
Goldberg, Dr. Batyah Rabinovitz and Tsevi Levin.

The gymnasium housed a Hebrew library in addition to the big community library
named after Mendele Mokher Sefarim (pseudonym of the writer Shalom Ya'akov
Abramovitz), with its hundreds of Yiddish and Hebrew books. During its existence the
gymnasium was supported by the Folksbank and by the local Hevrah Kadisha.
It was closed down after Lithuania became annexed to the Soviet Union in the
summer of 1940.

The fourth group of the evening lessons (of Hebrew) in Rasein

Zionist and other activities
During the years of the autonomy, the leftist parties Bund and Poalei Zion Smol
had great influence among Rasein's Jews. They established the Kultur Lige (Culture
League) and organized evening courses for children and adults. In the course of time only the
Folkist (Peoples) movement, which fostered the use of Yiddish and opposed Zionism,
remained from the Yiddish speaking camp. Its official propaganda organ was the
Yiddish daily newspaper Folksblat which was published in Kovno. At this time
the Zionist movement with all its variations conquered the Jewish public, and all Zionist
parties had branches in Rasein. Many participated in the elections for the Zionist congresses.
The table below reveals the division of the votes for each party:

Sports activities were carried out in the Maccabi branch with its 54 members,
as well as the Y.A.K. (Yiddisher Arbeiter Klub) of the Yiddishists. There
were active Kibutsei Hakhsharah (Training Kibutsim) of HeHalutz and
Berith HaKanaim (from 1933), and some Jewish youth belonged to the
Communist underground.

A group of Hashomer HaTsair in Rasein, 1924

Religion and Welfare
The eight prayer houses which existed in Rasein before World War I continued to
serve the community during this period too. These were the rabbis who
officiated: Yehoshua-Mordehai Klatskin (1862-1925); Mosheh Soloveitshik
(1878-1941) from 1908 in Rasein, and from 1931 head of the Rabbi
Yits'hak-Elhanan Yeshivah in New York. He was one of the leaders of the
Rabbinic Association of America and Canada, and died in New York. The last
Rabbi of Rasein, Aharon-Shemuel Katz (1871-1941), who published several books
on the Talmud, was murdered in the Holocaust.

Rabbi Mosheh Soloveitshik

During all these years there was a Small Yeshivah headed by Rabbi Roz
and later by Rabbi Goldshlag, as well as branches of Agudath Yisrael and
of the religious women's organization Beth-Ya'akov headed by pharmacist
Mrs. Volpert. There was also a branch of the religious boys' organization Tifereth
Bakhurim, headed by Eliyahu Alinik and a Ben Zakai society where gymnasium
students were taught Talmud, as well as other societies for studying Judaism,
such as Talmud, Mishnah and Ein Ya'akov.

The Ezrah society, which was active instead of the closed Community Committee,
operated the Bath House, the Home for the Aged and the Jewish Hospital. Other welfare
societies were the Society for Helping Poor Women in Confinement, headed by Mrs. Blokh,
Hakhnasath Orhim and Hevrah Kadisha.

During World War II and afterwards
In June 1940 Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming a Soviet
Republic. Following new rules, the majority of factories and shops belonging to
Jews in Rasein were nationalized and commissars were appointed to manage them.
All Zionist parties and youth organizations were disbanded, several of the
activists being detained. Hebrew educational institutions were closed. About
twenty families whose businesses were nationalized were exiled to Siberia and
elsewhere. A Jewish kindergarten with 64 children and a drama circle were
established by the new rulers.

On June 23, 1941, the second day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union,
Rasein was bombed by German planes. Most of the Jews left town and dispersed in
the fields and villages. During the night a heavy battle between the German
army and the Red Army ensued, and the next morning, June 24, the German army
entered Rasein. The Jews returning to the town found most of the houses,
including all prayer houses, ruined. Those that were left intact had been
ransacked by their Lithuanian neighbors and the returning Jews crowded into
those houses. Every day Lithuanian police would take out Jews for various types
of work, such as burying dead soldiers of the Red Army, collecting weapons
scattered in the fields and roads, cleaning streets and latrines, and so on.
The police abused the Jews, hitting them with whips and sticks and forcing them
to roll empty barrels over a distance of 15 km. Educated Jewish women would be
sent to wash floors in institutions and in the houses of Lithuanian and German
officials. They did not receive any food and were already beginning to exchange
various items and garments for food.

During the third week of the war, restrictions were imposed on the Jews: the
obligation to wear a white patch on the right side of the chest, banning them
from walking on the sidewalks, buying products in the market, or leaving their
houses during the hours of darkness, and so on.

A week later an order was issued to all Jewish men and women from the age of 15
to 45, to congregate in a monastery half a kilometer from the town on the road
to Yurburg. This was a two-storey house with a big yard with stables, pig sheds
and barns. The place was encircled by a barbed wire fence and forty Lithuanian
guards were stationed around it in order to prevent Jews from escaping. Family
members who were not obliged to go to the monastery were allowed to join their
families. In a single day about 1,500 Jews were imprisoned here, making it a
so-called Labor Camp. The next morning, July 27, 1941, all Jewish men were
forced to cut their beards and shave. Later, five cars with ten Germans
arrived. The Lithuanian commander read out names from a list which had been
prepared the day before, and ordered those named to stand in rows. Some were
given shovels and all were led towards Yurburg by sixty armed Lithuanians.
Those remaining in the camp were sure that they had been selected for some hard
work. But the truth was that the 393 men on the list and another 100 Jews who
were brought from the jail were led to a sand quarry, about 5 km. from the
town, where pits had been prepared. There they were shot and buried. The
murderers were Lithuanians, the Germans standing alongside to observe.

That same evening Lithuanian police arrested the Jewish intelligentsia, among
them lawyers Levy and Fridland, Rabbi Katz and others, the sick and the old,
and all were brought to the camp in the monastery. On July 29, this group was
led to the same pits and murdered there. Before the murders the Lithuanians
forced some Jews to write notes to their wives in the camp or in town, asking
them to send money, gold and diamonds by way of the police. And indeed some
women believed the message with regard to the money and gave the murderers
their valuables.

One day the residents of the camp were told that they may go to their families
in town and to be ready to be transferred together with their entire family to
the camp. They were allowed to bring everything they wanted. The unfortunate
Jews collected their possessions which had been accumulated over generations.
Their Lithuanian neighbors offered to store things with them for safe keeping
till the end of the war.

After their arrival in the camp, crowding became unbearable. From time to time
small groups of people would be taken out by the Lithuanians and they would
disappear without a trace. At night the Lithuanians would burst into the camp,
stealing everything they fancied and raping the young women. The camp at this
time housed about forty men and more than a thousand women and children.

In the second half of August 1941 an order was issued to all Jews remaining in
Rasein and the villages in the vicinity, to move to the estate of Bilevitz,
about 5 km. from Rasein, by August 27. An estimated 2,000 people, mostly women
and children, arrived at the estate.

On August 29, 1941 (6th of Elul, 5701) trucks with armed Lithuanians appeared.
The women and children were put on to the trucks, group by group, and
transported in the direction of Girtegole (Girkalnis). About 2 km. from the
town, near the village of Kalnujai, pits had been prepared. The victims were
made to stand at the edge of the pit, and were shot and buried in these pits. A
Lithuanian eye-witness who hid in a tree, reported later that the women were
forced to undress completely before they were shot. The children were thrown in
to the pits alive or their heads were shattered on tree trunks. The garments of
the murdered were divided up among the murderers and residents of the town.

The mass grave and the monument at the Kalnujai Castle Hill

The monument with the inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian:
In this place the blood of 1877 Jews, children, women and men,
was spilled by the Nazi murderers and their local helpers on 29.8.1941

Only a few Jews managed to hide with Lithuanian peasants, and survived. Some
peasants were murdered for hiding Jews. In the summer of 1941 several Jewish
youngsters managed to escape to Russia, from where they tried to get to
Eretz-Yisrael but were detained by the authorities.

According to Soviet sources, mass graves of the Jews of Rasein and the
surroundings were found in two places: beside the town of Girkalnis, about
1,600-1,650 Jews are buried about 10 km. south-east from Rasein, and a further
1,677 victims are buried near Kalnujai Hill, about 6 km. south-west of Rasein.

After the war, monuments were erected on these mass graves. At the beginning of
the 1990s a monument was erected on the Kalnujai mass grave, with an
inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian. Also a wooden tablet was fixed where the
Jewish cemetery in Vytautas Street had been, with an inscription in Yiddish and
Lithuanian saying: This was the site of the Jewish cemetery.

According to the 1990 cartographic survey of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania,
one cemetery was found in the village Uzdubysis in the Rasein district.

Only a few Jews managed to hide with Lithuanian peasants, and survived. Some
peasants were murdered for hiding Jews. In the summer of 1941 several Jewish
youngsters managed to escape to Russia, from where they tried to get to
Eretz-Yisrael but were detained by the authorities.

According to Soviet sources, mass graves of the Jews of Rasein and the
surroundings were found in two places: beside the town of Girkalnis, about
1,600-1,650 Jews are buried about 10 km. south-east from Rasein, and a further
1,677 victims are buried near Kalnujai Hill, about 6 km. south-west of Rasein.

After the war, monuments were erected on these mass graves. At the beginning of
the 1990s a monument was erected on the Kalnujai mass grave, with an
inscription in Yiddish and Lithuanian. Also a wooden tablet was fixed where the
Jewish cemetery in Vytautas Street had been, with an inscription in Yiddish and
Lithuanian saying: This was the site of the Jewish cemetery.

According to the 1990 cartographic survey of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania,
one cemetery was found in the village Uzdubysis in the Rasein district.

Emanuel Soloveitchik lived in the nineteenth century, was a doctor in the
Russian Navy and together with Pinsker established the periodical Zion
(in Russian).
Meir-Faivel Getz (1853-1932), director of the Hebrew high schools in Moscow and
Riga, published books and organized pedagogic courses for Tseirei Yisrael
and for teachers of the Yavneh chain in Kovno.
Yisrael-Yits'hak Volf (1861-1926), publisher of Zionist periodicals in the
United States.
Eliezer-Lipman Zilberman (1819-1882), founder of the modern Hebrew press,
established the HaMagid newspaper and published it till 1880.
Adolf Landau (1841-1902), established the monthly Voskhod (Sunrise)
and the weekly Cronika of Voskhod, published nine volumes of the
Hebrew Biblioteka in Russian, and more.
Hayim Rafalovitz (1882-1928), publisher and writer, editor of the Yiddish
periodical Unzer Tsait (Our Time), activist of the Yiddishists Folkspartei
in Kovno, established the publishing firm Likht (Light), wrote a few plays.
Yehezkel-Faivel Rotshtein  lived in the nineteenth century, a teacher and
writer in Germany.
Yosef Cohen (1890-?), lawyer, legislator in Quebec Province in Canada, active
in Jewish issues.
Rabbi Menahem-Mendel Aharonson, one of the activists of Mizrahi
in South Africa.
Rabbi Josef Yehudah Blokh (1849-1930), Rabbi of Telz and head of its
Yeshivah.
Dr. Tsemakh Tsemerion (Halperin), writer, educator, researcher. Died in Haifa
in 1988.
Emanuel Fortuna, Engineer in Chemistry and Physics, one of the pioneers of the
chemical industry in Israel, was a director of the military physical industry,
also a member of the delegation of industrialists to the reparations agreement
with Germany.

The above article is an excerpt from Protecting Our Litvak Heritage by Josef Rosin.
The book contains this article along with many others, plus an extensive description of the Litvak
Jewish community in Lithuania that provides an excellent context to understand the above article.
Click here to see where to obtain the book.

This material is made available by JewishGen, Inc. and the Yizkor Book Project for the purpose
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This material may not be copied, sold or bartered without permission of the copyright holders: Josef Rosin zl and Joel Alpert.

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